


Weasley Spinster

by greisful



Series: The Victoire Weasley [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Humour, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7004527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greisful/pseuds/greisful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>Victoire Weasley was an unpleasant and rude person. She was stubborn, a force to be reckoned with and under the impression that she was always right (which she usually was). </p>
  <p>And no matter what anyone said or did would ever change that.<br/></p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spinster For Life

**Author's Note:**

>   
>   
>  banner by Lady Asphodel @ tda

When your friends say that you'll end up a spinster for life or that you're a dragon lady, they're usually joking. They don't mean to hurt your feelings and they're not serious about what they say: they're joking.  
  
Unless they really mean that you'll end up a spinster with a worrying amount of cats and that you really are a dragon lady, in which case they're just being plain mean.  
  
Such was the case with Victoire Weasley. When people said that she would end up a spinster, they meant it. When they said that she was a dragon lady, they meant it.  
  
People never said any of this to Victoire's face, oh no, they were too terrified that she'd claw their faces off if they did. That didn't stop anyone from whispering it behind her back though. Victoire knew what they thought about her and quite frankly, she didn't care. She was more focused on getting out of Hogwarts alive and getting a job than about what petty people thought of her.  
  
Victoire wanted to get into the International Magical Office of Law. She was taking all of the courses needed to get in and she was currently the student with the highest marks in all of them (naturally). If Victoire didn't get into her division in the Department of International Magical Cooperation (which she would), then she would apply for a job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.  
  
It's not that Victoire liked working with animals (in fact, she pretty much despised them) but at least the job would be more interesting. She'd take animals over sitting behind a desk and discussing Quidditch things with people she couldn't stand.  
  
For the sake of everyone's sanity and safety, all of her classmates hoped that Victoire would get the job she wanted.  
  
She may be a dragon lady and she may end up as a spinster with lots of owls but she would be a rich spinster. After all, the job did pay pretty well and Victoire would be well off without help from her parents.  
  
Victoire didn't date, the very idea of asking out Victoire was like asking for a death sentence to some people. While Donna had gone on lots of dates, Victoire hadn't. It's not like the dates amounted to much. Victoire made fun of all possible boyfriends and the boys couldn't take it and gave up on Donna.  
  
At first Donna had gotten annoyed with Victoire for doing what she did which resulted in them having a huge row. They didn't speak for days after that and it took Donna several days to realise that if the blokes couldn't put up with Victoire who was her closest friend in the entire world then they weren't worth it. If they couldn't stand Victoire then how would they be able to deal with worse things.  
  
When Donna talked to Victoire, they both admitted that they were in the wrong. Donna admitted that Victoire did have a point and Victoire decided not to call all of Donna's dates total morons unless they were dumber than rocks. It was a win win situation.  
  
Victoire's mother always told her that if she didn't have anything nice to say then she shouldn't say it (this was told after Victoire went up to Aunt Muriel and asked her why she looked like a banshee).  
  
Victoire was a little bit of a sass mouth when she was a little girl. She constantly talked back to her parents and even at that age she was questioning them about why she had to do why she had to do and why she was punished for things. She was a difficult child and there were few people who had the patience to put up with Victoire and who Victoire liked back. Harry could babysit Victoire for days on end and not once would he get annoyed with her or irritated or angry and no one ever heard him snap at her doing something.  
  
Nana Molly was a saint in everyone's eyes because she was the only other person who could put up with Victoire. Having raised seven children herself, she knew what children were like and she had developed the skill -like many mothers with lots of children- of endless patience that was required when dealing with lots of children. She also happened to be the only one that Victoire listened to. There was just something about her Nana Molly that scared her, she didn't know if it was the stern look or the stern voice but something told her that she should listen.  
  
Her mother's orders about never saying anything didn't have much of an impression on Victoire. When her grandmother told Victoire to never say anything if it wasn't nice however, it stuck. Okay, well, it stuck more than when her mother said it.  
  
Victoire nodded along and said that she'd follow that rule but she never did. It was impossible for her to keep quiet and keep her opinions to herself. Victoire was one of those people who always spoke their thoughts and was never sorry for what they said. It was better to be honest than to lie. Victoire lived her life by that rule and no matter where she was, Victoire usually spoke her mind.  
  
"What is the spell used to conjure water?"  
  
"Aqua!"  
  
"Clara, shut up, you lower the IQ of everyone at Hogwarts when you speak."  
  
Like now for instance. Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You'll attend classes, learn magic, witness some stupidity and be subject to commentary and sarcasm from Victoire Weasley. Enjoy your stay.


	2. The Hatred is Strong

Victoire hated Quidditch, absolutely hated it, she would rather fail an entire year of school than sit through a Quidditch game. 

 

Okay, no she wouldn't, but she was trying to make a point here.

  
And yet, Donna somehow managed to drag her down to the Quidditch pitch every year to watch Donna try out for the team. Which was why Victoire was sitting in the stands, a hot cup of coffee nestled in her hands and half her face hidden by a thick scarf. Poppy, on the other hand, was absolutely ecstatic to be at the tryouts. She kept bouncing in her seat excitedly, hands tucked tightly in between her knees to keep them warm.

"Please stop, I beg of you," Victoire said, her voice coming out muffled through her scarf.

"How are you not excited, it's so much fun to watch everyone try out," Poppy exclaimed, still bouncing in her seat.

"Oh yeah, sitting around for two hours out in the cold watching people I don't know or like flying around on a stick for a chance to be on a team. It's only been five minutes and I can't feel my goddamn legs, you're right, this is exactly what I want to be doing in the morning," Victoire replied dryly, rubbing her hands around her cup of coffee. She jiggled her knees a little to get the warmth back into them.

What was even taking them so long to get started. As far as Victoire could see everyone was just standing around the field looking serious.

"Do you have your wand on you?" Victoire asked Poppy.

"No, do you?"

"No, I didn't think I'd need it this morning so I just left it in the dorm," Victoire said, shivering as some of the cold seeped in through her puffy jacket.

Of course Quidditch tryouts would be held on the coldest day of fall, why wouldn't they be. It was as if the universe was making fun of Victoire, as if saying to her "If you thought this couldn't get any worse, sister you have another thing coming."

The sky was covered with grey clouds, with the sun’s rays barely managing to shine through. The grass on the pitch was dead, the trees Victoire had seen on the way to the pitch were dead and leafless. She'd felt like she was walking to her death on the way to the pitch. And as if the gloomy weather wasn't enough, a chilly wind kept blowing, messing up Victoire's hair and sending wave after wave of cold through her.

She was going to kill Donna.

"This is the first team tryouts I've ever been to in all of my time here," Poppy said cheerfully, bouncing her seat. She was ridiculously chipper for such a cold morning, and it was beginning to get on Victoire's nerve.

"Rub it in my face why don't you," Victoire replied. Victoire looked down at the small crowd of people on the pitch, surrounding the person she assumed was the captain.

"What is taking them so long, hurry up," Victoire muttered. She didn't even know why she was sticking around if she was being honest. Donna had forced her to come down to the pitch, but it wasn't as if she could make Victoire stick around.

You're here to support your friend, she answered herself and scowled. Great, now she was turning into someone nice, when had she become so soft? It was Donna's fault that she wasn't as mean as she used to be.

Finally, thank Merlin, the tryouts actually began. Students started shooting into the air and flying in circles, listening to what the captain was yelling up at them from the ground. Poppy had leaned forward once the tryouts began, in fact she was leaning out so far over the edge of the stands that Victoire was worried she'd end up falling.

Victoire didn't even know why she was so excited, no one had done anything exciting and yet Poppy looked ecstatic to watch people just fly around.

"Will you sit down," Victoire snapped, grabbing her by the back of her coat and yanking her back into her seat. "You're going to tip over and plummet to your death, sit your arse down."

The tryouts had started properly in the next two minutes, students flew in formation or demonstrated specific moves on their brooms. Meanwhile the people on the ground had divided themselves into groups, Victoire assumed that it was based on the position they were trying out for.

There were always the few people who fell off as soon as they got a few metres into the air. And then there were the people who tried to show off how talented they were but messed up in some way. Students left the pitch as the captain of the team made cuts with each group that took their turn in the sky.

Victoire had trouble keeping her eyes open the entire time, she found her eyelids drooping on more than one occasion. Poppy's shrieks of excitement from next to her were the only thing that were keeping her awake.

Within half an hour Victoire's butt hurt from sitting on the benches, she couldn't feel her tail bone, her coffee had gone cold and her hands were beginning to freeze.

And when the tryouts had finally ended, the only reason Victoire knew that they were over was because Poppy was tugging at her sleeve. Victoire and Poppy hurried down from the stands and rushed to meet up with Donna on the way back to the school. Everyone that had stuck around for tryouts was sweaty and flushed, but they were also beginning to shiver as the cold stuck to them.

Donna's ponytail, which had been at the top of her head when she had come down to the pitch, was sloppy with long strands of hair falling out. Her face was shining with sweat, her cheeks a bright red, and breathing hard. But the smile on her face stretched from ear to ear and you could tell she was happy with how her tryout had gone.

"Well, did you make it or not?" Victoire demanded in greeting.

"Captain said he has to think about, there was someone else that was just as good as me so he wants to make sure he makes the right decision," Donna replied as the three of them walked back to the castle.

"He better pick you, I froze my arse off out there in support," Victoire replied.

But a week passed and still Donna had not heard whether she had made the team. Donna whined so much that it got to the point where Victoire was ready to push her friend out their dorm window if it meant never having to hear about the stupid tryouts ever again.

"I didn't make the team, that's probably why he hasn't announced anything, because he's trying to figure out how to tell me I didn't make the team," Donna said, head cradled in her hand. Victoire had gone to the library thinking that Donna wouldn't come looking for there but ten minutes after grabbing a table, Donna had shown up. And she had spent the time ever since talking Victoire's ear off about the tryouts. Victoire had fingers pressed to her temples and her eyes closed.

"Or maybe, he just hasn't decided," Victoire forced her voice to remain calm. “It’s not easy to choose between two equally talented people just give him a few more days.”

"Maybe he's already told the other girl that she got the spot and is just trying to figure out how to tell me I sucked," Donna went on, completely ignoring Victoire.

"Why don't you go ask him to make a decision if it's bothering you so much then?" Victoire asked. If Donna kept this up, Victoire was going to Stun her and leave her in their dorm.Or maybe she’d ask the nurse if she had something to calm Donna down, the girl was going to make herself sick with worrying so much.

"I can't do that though, what if I come off as annoying and that makes up his mind that he shouldn't pick me," Donna retaliated.

"Well if he's already decided you're not going to be on the team, going by your previous logic, then what's the harm?" Victoire was seconds away from bashing her head against the desk.

Donna opened her mouth to answer, and then she was sprawled on the carpet, chair and all, with a terrified look on her face. She got on her knees, grasped the edge of the table and slowly lifted her eyes a few centimetres above the tabletop to stare at the entrance to the library  in terror.

"It's him," she whispered loudly. Victoire looked towards the library entrance, but she wasn't entirely sure who she was supposed to be looking at.

"Who?"

"It's the captain of the team!" Donna whispered, pointing to one of the boys. They were all relatively short boys, all of them with their hair dyed different colours of the rainbow, except for one, who was taller than the rest and had his hair tied back in a bun.

"The one with his hair in a bun?" Victoire asked. Donna simply nodded her head.

"You sure?" Again Donna nodded.

"I'll be right back," Victoire said, getting to her feet. Donna threw herself around Victoire's legs.

"Oh my God, what are you doing?" Victoire asked her.

"You can't go talk to him," Donna said.

"Why not?" Victoire lifted an an eyebrow, and crossed her arms.

"Because you're going to scare the living daylights out of him and then he really won't pick me for the team."

"If he tells you whether or not you made the team, will you stop whining about it?" Victoire demanded. Donna nodded her head slowly, eyes wide.

"I'll be right back," and Victoire was out of Donna's grip before the girl could blink and making her way towards the Quidditch captain.

"Victoire!" Donna hissed loudly from her hiding spot but Victoire simply waved her off and kept going.

The eyes of Bun Boy’s friends widened in fear as Victoire came closer and closer. "You," she said, pointing at Bun Boy. He turned around at the sound of her voice.

"Are you the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team?" Victoire asked.

"Yeah."

"Good, come with me," she said, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the library.

"It was nice knowing you bro!" The boys friends yelled after the two of them.

“We need to talk about who you’re going to pick to fill the spot of Seeker,” Victoire said, in place of greeting.

“I have a name, it’s Matthew, by the way.”

“Don’t care,” Victoire replied dismissively. Names were for people she intended on spending time with, she wasn’t ever going to speak to Matthew past that day.

"You need to make up your mind about who you're going to pick to fill in the spot of Seeker. Donna has been driving me up the wall with her constant worrying so I'm going to need you to hurry the hell up and make a choice. Pick her or don't, I don't care just give her an answer in the next two days. I can't stand seeing her worried so much for such a long period of time!" Victoire exclaimed, because as much as she hated to admit it, she was more worried about Donna than she wanted to let on. She may have been annoyed at having to hear about Quidditch so much, but she was more worried about the anxiety Donna was experiencing.

"And if I don't?" the boy asked, sticking his chin out.

"Then I'm going to force a decision out of you," Victoire replied with a pleasant smile. She slapped his cheek twice, "Okay?"

"Okay," the boy replied, nodding his head.

"We understand each other then, good," and without another word, Victoire spun on her heel and marched back to where Donna was still crouching on the ground, hiding behind a table.

"What did you do to him?" Donna demanded, glaring at her best friend.

"Nothing, he's in one piece isn't he? No blood or anything," Victoire said. They both looked towards the entrance to see Matthew come in, he kept glancing over at Victoire's table and once he saw that she was also looking at him, picked up his pace.

"Told you. But if I were you I'd expect an answer pretty soon," Victoire added, and left it at that no matter how much Donna asked what she was talking about.

And sure enough two days later, and a whole lot of worrying, Donna did in fact get an answer. Victoire had been in the common room, finishing up an essay when Donna had come running in, taken the seat beside her and sat staring at her with a wide grin on her face for ten minutes.

"Spit it out already," Victoire told her without looking up from her parchment.

"Guess what?" Donna said, twisting from side to side in her seat.

"I'm not guessing."

"I made the Quidditch team!" Donna yelled so loudly the entire common room stopped to stare at her for a moment. Victoire couldn't help but smirk, she was very good at persuading people, if she did say so herself.

"Well how about that."


	3. Nifflers

No one in Victoire's family really understood why she took Care of Magical Creatures; they didn't see how she was going to use the knowledge from class. If she was being honest with herself, she didn't see how the class was going to help her out later in life either. But, she found it interesting, especially when the animals they were working with didn't try and kill her.

She thought maybe when she was older and living in a house of her own she'd use what she knew about gnomes to get them out of her garden. Victoire most certainly didn't expect to put any of her knowledge to use before she even graduated from Hogwarts.

It had been one cold autumn day in November when her Transfiguration class was interrupted by hundreds of stomping feet running outside of her classroom. Everyone had gone quiet and turned towards the door as McGonagall strode past the desks, a stern expression on her face to check what was going on. She opened one of the doors and Victoire managed to catch a glimpse of students running past each other in a hurry. She didn't understand what was going on, class wasn't anywhere near over. Professor Flitwick came hobbling up to McGonagall, an alarmed expression on his face.

"Professor Flitwick, do you know what is going on here?" McGonagall asked.

"Someone -huff- someone has let -huff- Nifflers into the school. They're everywhere," Flitwick said before hurrying off.

McGonagall closed the door and turned to the class. "Class is dismissed, everyone is to go to their common rooms and await further instructions from your Head of House."

Victoire closed her textbook, put away her pencils, parchment, and hurried past the rest of her classmates out into the corridor. She had only stepped outside of her class for a few seconds before she was almost knocked to the ground by other students. She tried to get to the Gryffindor Common Room as quickly as she could, which was quite difficult considering she had to push against a tide of people who were all going in different directions.

When she finally managed to reach the Fat Lady, the portrait hole was already open as a continuous stream of students kept pouring into the common room. When Victoire herself finally managed to climb through, she found the common room brimming with people. Very few students had gone up to their own dorm room and had instead secure a spot somewhere on the common room. The windows were blocked, the couches and chairs were blocked, the walls were blocked and almost every inch of the floor was full of people sitting cross legged or standing. There were even a few who had resorted to bringing their brooms out of their dorms and hovering in the air above everyone else.

Victoire didn't see her friends, so rather than harass some younger student to open a spot for her, she tiptoed around everyone and took the stairs two at a time up to her room. She found Poppy and Donna sitting on the stairs outside of her dorm. Victoire, threw her bag into her room before joining them on the stairs.

"I don't even know why they're making such a big deal, it's only Nifflers, it's not as if there were dozens of Hippogriffs loose inside the school," Donna said with a roll of her eyes. She stared perplexedly at a couple of sixth years that went running down the stairs giggling in excitement.

"You're right, it's not like the corridors aren't covered up with dozens of paintings in gold frames or anything," Victoire replied dryly.

"Fair enough."

"And it's not as if the Potions classroom isn't full of shiny things the Nifflers could break, and students carrying around expensive equipment," Victoire went on. The Nifflers may not have been a threat to the safety of the students, but they could still cause a lot of damage to the school.

"Okay Victoire, I get the point," Donna said.

"Why is everyone crowded in the common room, though? I mean, they're only Nifflers, they're not that interesting," Poppy replied. She leaned against the wall behind her and stretched her legs across Donna and Victoire's lap.

"This is probably the most exciting thing that's happened at Hogwarts since my aunt and uncle went here," Victoire replied.

"That's not entirely true, you're an absolute joy to be around Victoire," Donna said with a grin, and even Poppy snorted. Maybe this was the most exciting thing to happen to Victoire but everyone practically made bets on who Victoire was going to rip into, when, and why.

"You're so witty Donna, I don't know how I used to live before I met you," Victoire deadpanned and shifted her position on the stairs. The stones were not only cold, but they were extremely uncomfortable. They kept digging into Victoire's back any time she tried to slouch. The only time she ever sat with her back this straight was when she was at home and her maman kept slapping her back and telling her not to slouch.

"Why exactly are we sitting out on the stairs though?" Victoire asked.

"Thought we'd join in on the fun," Poppy replied with a shrug.

Victoire was about to suggest that they join in on the fun from the comfort of her soft bed in her dorm when a student came running up the stairs and stopped in front of Victoire.

"May I help you?" Victoire asked the younger girl.

"Professor McGonagall wants to see you," the girl said, she took a moment to catch her breath before running off again.

"What does McGonagall want to see you for?" Poppy inquired. Victoire shrugged in response and pushed the girl's legs off of her lap.

"No idea, but it can't be anything good," Victoire replied. She made sure her wand was in her pocket, said goodbye to her friends, and made her way back down the stairs again. She found McGonagall waiting for her by the portrait hole when she finally got down to the common room.

Everyone turned to stare at Victoire as she carefully stepped around the students standing around or sitting on the floor.

"What can I do for you, Professor?" Victoire asked.

"Hagrid tells me that you're one of the best Care of Magical Creatures students that he's had since you started taking his classes," McGonagall answered. Victoire didn't know how to respond to that, she was quite sure that it was most likely true, but it wasn't the time to respond with, "He's right, I am."

"If Hagrid thinks so then I guess," Victoire said. She had a bit of an idea of where McGonagall was heading with what she wanted to say.

"If you'll come with me, Hagrid would like to discuss something with you," McGonagall said in a tone of voice that suggested she would prefer if Victoire would agree to come along with her. Victoire wasn’t about to start saying no to her Head of House, she would need good recommendations from her teachers later on, not to mention Victoire genuinely like McGonagall.

"Sure, Professor, the rest of my day was free anyway," Victoire said, and followed the old witch out of the portrait hole with dozens of eyes fixed on her back as she left.

"So what exactly can I help you with, Professor?" Victoire asked as she kept up with McGonagall's quick strides. They went down floor after floor until Victoire was quite sure they were only heading to the Great Hall.

"There are simply not enough teachers present to deal with the large amount of Nifflers that are present in this school, so, at Hagrid's suggestion, me, and my colleagues decided that it would be best to have the help of one or two of Hagrid's top students," McGonagall said.

Victoire would never say it, but she felt honoured, even touched, that they would consider her as one of the first students to consider in a situation like this. And perhaps she didn't have to say it because when McGonagall turned to look at her, she saw everything Victoire wasn't saying on her face.

When they finally reached the Great Hall, they found the staff and four other students waiting for Victoire and McGonagall to show up.

"So, what are we going to do?" Victoire asked, looking around at everyone gathered.

"Nifflers are attracted to shiny things, so we go and search every floor of the castle, and every classroom, bathroom, and broom closet to find these Nifflers. We have to attract the Nifflers down to the Great Hall where Hagrid will be waiting with several kennels to hold them. The problem here is, we have to find something bigger, and shinier than anything in those corridors," one of the new teachers said, she was only a few years older than Victoire herself and hadn't quite mastered the formal tone the rest of the teachers took on when talking to students.

"So how do we do that?" one of the other students present asked.

"We charm ourselves to shine," Victoire answered simply.

And a few minutes later, Victoire had been hit with spell that could make her shine and sparkle. She was shining so brightly it was hurting even her eyes, she couldn’t imagine what it was like for the others looking at her. But even the light that was coming off of her couldn't blind her to the mess that had become Professor McGonagall. She would never, until the day she died, forget the stern, elderly teacher covered in sequins and sparkles and shining. The decorations were at odds with McGonagall's puckered mouth and lowered eyebrows. Victoire was finding it very hard not to start laughing.

"If this still doesn't get their attention then make yourself brighter, make noise, do something to get the Nifflers to follow you back here," the new teacher said and then they were off. Victoire had gotten the good luck to take the dungeons and headed off right away. The dungeons were so dark and so cold she'd have absolutely no problem getting the Nifflers attention there.

Victoire hurried down the stairs and shivered as it got colder and colder the lower she went underground. She decided to start from Professor Slughorn's Potions classroom and then work her way around the entire floor from there. Victoire searched every inch of Slughorn's office. She looked under his desk and in his drawers. She even went into his cupboard to make sure there wasn't a Niffler sniffing around the jars. Once she was certain that there was nothing in the room, she locked the door behind her and kept going.

The first classroom that she came by, she slowly opened the door, wand in hand at the ready, just in case a Niffler threw itself at her in excitement. Victoire stepped into the classroom and closed it behind her to make sure that, if there was a Niffler, it couldn't get out.

She searched under every desk, only to find nothing but air. She crept up to the teacher’s desk and slowly came around the desk and looked under it. Victoire lit up the entire room, quite literally, so it was very easy for her to spot the round eyes, the long snout, and the small black body huddled under the desk, staring up at her in surprise. She smiled in the friendliest way that she could and beckoned the Niffler towards her.

"Come here little Niffler," Victoire cooed, holding out her empty hand. The Niffler moved towards her instantly, Victoire took a step back, and the Niffler hurried after her. She lured it to the door, and once she was sure it would follow her without her having to coax it every few minutes, she took the Niffler with her out into the hallway.

The next classroom that Victoire looked into was empty but the two following the empty one were full. Victoire had around eight Nifflers following her after checking only four classrooms. She checked every broom cupboard, moving aside mops and buckets to make sure no Nifflers had gotten stuck in them.

Victoire had checked every corridor, every hidden corridor and by the time that she had finished checking the dungeons, Victoire had a loyal following of twenty Nifflers with her. She made sure to lock every room that she checked so that none of them could sneak in before leaving.

Before she went to Hagrid, Victoire stopped by the kitchens, where she found house-elves standing on tables, trying to save their pots and pans from the Nifflers that were crowded around the tables. Victoire let out a loud whistle and watched as every head in the room snapped towards her. And then the Nifflers all moved towards her as one, she hurried towards the kitchen entrance and opened the portrait door to let the Nifflers move out.  
  
When she finally climbed up to the main floor again, she found Hagrid waiting with holding kennels for the Nifflers to go in. The Nifflers had lined themselves up behind Victoire and were following her on their short legs.  
  
"Hagrid, are you sure these are big enough?" Victoire asked, looking at the small kennels with doubt. There were over a hundred Nifflers in the school and there was only twenty kennels for them to fit in. Not to mention they looked small, how were they going to fit so many Nifflers into so few kennels without harming them?  
  
"Don' worry, they're bigger on the inside," Hagrid said with a wink. Victoire bent over to look into the kennels, and they were indeed bigger on the inside. There was enough room for the Nifflers to rest comfortably while they were being transported to wherever they needed to go -assuming they weren't staying at Hogwarts, of course. There were pillows and even food and water.  
  
One by one, Victoire managed to get the Nifflers into the kennel and softly closed the door once they were all inside.  
  
"I'll go help out everyone else," Victoire said, and the jogged off to keep searching.  
  
It took a few hours, and a lot of running, especially on Victoire's part before all the Nifflers were rounded up in their kennels and ready to go. One by one the kennels filled up, with extra extension charms added to them just to really make sure that the Nifflers weren't cramped together.  
  
The spell had finally worn off Victoire and she went back to being her usual, non-sparkly self. It would've been such a pain to have to go to the common room shining.  
  
Once Hagrid had taken the last kennel with him, Victoire turned to McGonagall, who was watching the Magical Creatures teacher walk back to his hut, and asked, "Why exactly were there so many Nifflers at Hogwarts in the first place, Professor?"  
  
McGonagall turned to Victoire, and then looked back at Hagrid's retreating figure, and replied with, "Some questions are best left unanswered Miss Weasley."


	4. Wallet

Victoire had finally managed to make it home for the holidays. She was finally free from the neverending noise of her fellow schoolmates. She never really noticed how much screeching the younger students actually made until she found herself in her room surrounded by peace and quiet.

 

Her parents had been at King’s Cross Station to meet her, her younger siblings were more than excited to see her come home for the holidays. They crowded around her and squeezed her around the middle until she could barely breathe.

  
They had Apparated home and Victoire had immediately taken her things up the stairs to her room, where she locked the door to make sure no one could get in. She spent the next thirty minutes sitting on her bed, staring at the wall, and listening to the waves crashing on the shore near her cottage. The salty smell of the sea somehow managed to seep into her room even though her windows were closed. Her room was exactly as she had left it, except cleaner thanks to her mum.

She lay down on the bed, spread out her arms and closed her eyes in contentment. She would never admit it, but she missed home. Victoire never told anyone she missed them or that she loved them, it was just the way Victoire was. Her parents and siblings always greeted her with hellos and I love yous, but Victoire herself could never get the words out.

And as much as Victoire loved Donna, she was getting a little tired of hearing about Quidditch all the time, because frankly, Victoire didn't care. She wanted to add something useful to Donna's conversation but she didn't pay any attention to Quidditch at all, as a result she never had anything useful to add except humming in agreement. Poppy was much better in these situations than Victoire was.

After Victoire had unpacked a few things that she knew she would wear often —mostly sweaters— she headed downstairs to spend some time with her family. Shell Cottage had been a lot smaller when she was younger but as the number of children in her family grew, so had the inside of her house. Victoire found her parents in the kitchen cooking together, and her siblings playing cards in the living room.

Dominique and Louis were sitting facing each other and playing a game of Exploding Snap. Victoire sat with them and watched them play. Dom would occasionally glare at Louis every time he played a card that put her at a disadvantage and Louis looked ready to fling himself away at the slightest hint of the cards exploding. Victoire remembered that one time he had played with the cards and accidentally singed his eyebrows when Louis was younger. The fear had never really left him but that never stopped him from playing with the cards. And it never stopped Dom from teasing him about it in an effort to distract Louis enough to let her win.

"Watch yourself there Lou, might set your eyebrows on fire," Dom said teasingly. Louis ignored her however and focused on his cards. Except for the slight tightening of his leg muscles you couldn't really tell Dom had bothered her brother at all.

"At least I can win a game of Exploding Snap without having to cheat," Louis shot back calmly. Victoire would've oooohed but that would've dragged her into their bickering.

"Fight me!" Dom yelled, throwing down the cards in anger.

"Square up, sis!" Louis exclaimed, throwing down his own cards and putting up his fists. Victoire watched in amusement, she couldn't believe that they were only ten, they sounded like some of her schoolmates in the hallways.

"Maybe you two should play another game," Victoire interrupted as her siblings were rolling up their sleeves. And without any warning, Victoire's siblings threw themselves at her and tackled her to the ground. For a second she thought they were actually going to hit her but all Louis and Dom did was plant a kiss on each side of her cheek.

She hated them. She hated them so much. Which was why Victoire was wrapping an arm around each of her younger siblings to hold them to her and gave them a kiss on the forehead, because she hated them.

Victoire had two days to spend with her family, before they had to head off to the Burrow to spend Christmas with everyone else. Unlike her extended family, Victoire's family wasn't nearly as loud and wild, unless Dom and Lou had a little too much candy. And they liked it that way, her parents liked being around her, Dom, and Lou without talking. They didn't need all the excitement that came with the rest of Victoire's cousin to enjoy each other's company.

The time passed in a blur, Victoire helped her dad out with his flowers in the garden, and her mum with the laundry. Victoire spent some time with her siblings and told them stories about Hogwarts. They were one year away from entering their first year, and the closer they got to getting their letter, the more questions they had for Victoire. At the insistence of Louis, Victoire even taught Dom and Lou how to write a good essay (although she wasn’t sure they understood much of what she said).

Before Victoire knew it, she was getting dressed to go over to her Grandma Weasley's house with the rest of her family. The rest of her family members each carried a few presents in one arm and had Floo powder in their hand, waiting to go. There were so many people in their extended family that they all had to get presents for and as a result Christmas ended up turning into a little bit of a hassle as everyone tried to transport all the presents on one trip. Victoire tried especially hard to get the presents to the Burrow on one trip despite the fact that her mum always told her she could make two. But Victoire always responded with, "I make it with one trip or die trying."

When Victoire's turn came, she had one bag hanging off of one arm, filled to the brim with presents, and another 10 tucked into her armpit and sitting on her arm. Her left hand held the Floo powder. She dropped the powder, yelled out "The Burrow!" and held her presents and bag as close to her as she possibly could. It wouldn't be the first time that presents fell out of fireplaces that they shouldn't have.

Once Victoire had stopped spinning, she carefully put down the presents she had been carrying and gave herself a moment for the world to stop spinning. Once the walls had stopped moving, Victoire gathered the presents and made her way to the room where the giant Christmas tree was always set up every year.

Normal families opened presents at home, but the Weasley's and Potter's opened up theirs on Christmas Eve while they were all at the Burrow together. She put her presents under the tree, before exiting the room and going into the kitchen where, naturally, everyone was squeezed in. Everyone was sitting around the table and talking while the younger kids ran around yelling at each other.  Uncle Harry was listening to careful instructions being given to him about cooking, while Aunt Ginny teased Victoire's Uncle Charlie about something that she couldn't hear.

Aunt Angelina was showing Uncle Ron how to peel potatoes using the right spell, and Grandpa Weasley was sitting at the head of the table listening to a story that Uncle George was telling him. Uncle George had his little girl Roxanne sitting on his lap, and her twin brother Fred was in Grandpa Weasley's arms.

Victoire slid into the open seat next to her Aunt Hermione, who was quietly reading a book while everyone else talked. There was always an empty seat next to her Aunt Hermione, and Victoire was beginning to think that her Aunt made sure there was a spot next to her.

Hermione was the one that Victoire liked best, her Aunt just understood where Victoire was coming from, she understood Victoire's ambition and the cold attitude that she had with anyone that wasn't family or a close friend. And Hermione never judged her for it, she was the one that Victoire felt comfortable being around the most.

Victoire's parents arrived a few minutes after her and immediately found a spot in which they could fit into the scene. James was in his fourth year at Hogwarts, and already stressing out about OWL year. Although the two of them never really acknowledged each other much in the hallways at school, James never left her side whenever they were home for the holidays.

Victoire hadn't seen him yet though, she had seen every other cousin of hers go running in and out of the kitchen, and she could hear them thundering up the stairs yelling at each other. James however had still not been spotted.

About five minutes later however, James took his spot next to Victoire, like he did every year. He slid in next to Victoire on the bench without her noticing. One minute he wasn't there and then she turned around he was.

"Victoire how are you?" James asked, eyes widening in surprise. He always acted like he didn't pass by Victoire in the common room daily, as if he didn't see her entering a classroom that he was exiting. They never acknowledged each other's existence, Victoire didn't know why, they just never did, it had always been that way. Albus never really talked to her either when they were at Hogwarts, but she had a feeling that was mostly due to the fact that Albus was afraid of her.

"I'm doing fine," she replied.

"That's good, good," James said nodding. "NEWTs aren't too difficult for you then?"

"No, I'm doing fine, I mean, I stay up late a couple nights a week but it's nothing too stressful," Victoire replied shrugging. James had asked the same thing when she was in Sixth Year, and the same thing when she was in Fifth and doing her OWLs. For some Victoire never really struggled with school in the same way the rest of her classmates did. She had just as much, if not more homework, and yet she had half of the stress.

"How's your year going so far for you?" Victoire asked in turn. She found herself actually wanting to know the answer funnily enough. She turned to face James as much as she could on the limited seating room that they had.

James' drooped when she asked the question. His smile became a little smaller, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I’m so stressed Victoire, what if I don’t do well this year, and I fail my OWLs next year!”

  
“I stay up until midnight or one in the morning studying for class,” James said, burying his hands into his hair.  
  
Victoire looked at him with concern. It wasn’t healthy that he was already worrying about OWL year before he even started fifth year. She was worried about how he was going to handle OWL year if he was already this stressed out over only fourth year.  
  
"You’ll make it through the year James don’t worry, you’ve always got your family here for help," Victoire said, rubbing James' arm in support. James could get through anything, he was always worrying about something, convinced that whatever the thing was that it wasn’t going to go well and then he made it through it. At least he would be going into OWL year with an idea of what to expect.  
  
"You never struggled this much," James replied with a sigh.  
  
"Not everyone is me, a lot of people struggle through school, I was one of the lucky few," Victoire replied. She couldn't tell James that she had found moments when even she struggled to keep up because it wasn't true. Victoire wanted to be supportive but she couldn't lie to her cousin’s face. She had never really struggled at Hogwarts, and everyone knew it, she couldn’t lie to be supportive even if she wanted to because James would know that she was lying.  
  
"I put myself to sleep my listing off Potions ingredients, or reciting the textbook from memory," James replied with a grown.  
  
"You can always come ask me for some help if you're struggling," Victoire responded. The words were out before she's even thought about it. Victoire Weasley didn't offer help to anyone, everybody knew that, she didn't offer tutoring because she didn't have the patience. She hadn't even wanted to help Poppy when the girl had first approached her and yet here she was offering up her time for her cousin.  
  
"Really?!" James exclaimed in surprise. If Victoire was as dead inside as she had been in the previous years, she would've taken back what she had said. But Poppy and Donna had done something to her that had warmed her cold heart and she found herself unable to say no to the hopeful look on James's face. His eyebrows were getting ready to take flight by the looks of it.  
  
"Sure?" the answer came out as a question, as if Victoire herself didn't know what the answer was. She gently closed James' open mouth and waited for a response.  
  
James threw himself at her with a hug and squeezed. "Did I ever mention how much I love you," James said. Victoire patted his back awkwardly and gave a small smile. But after several minutes of James holding on to her she grew a little annoyed.  
  
"James, get off me," Victoire said. As soon as James let go, he fired off question after question at Victoire, barely giving her enough time to answer one before asking another. When she had agreed to helping him she hadn't realized that her job as a tutor would be starting so soon.   
  
She was in the middle of explaining how a certain plant worked in potions when Nana Weasley announced that dinner was ready. Everyone over the age of eleven was required to help set the table in order to get ready to eat.  
  
The rest of the evening passed with food going from hand to hand and everyone talking loudly. Jokes were flying across the table, little kids giggled, and the adults had gotten very drunk. Victoire wondered what people would think if they saw the great Harry Potter and Ron Weasley giggling in their seats at a bad pun.   
  
Her mum's cheeks were bright red as she laughed and let out a little hiccup. Victoire's dad was especially red in the face, ginger genes could do that to a person.  
  
Victoire herself hadn't drank anything, she didn't really like the taste of alcohol, or being drunk for that matter. After dinner was finished, everyone left the kitchen as the dishes washed themselves and gathered around the Christmas tree. No matter how drunk anyone got, the presents had to be opened before they went home for the evening, that's just the way that it was.   
  
The younger kids of course ripped into their presents in a matter of seconds. Wrapping was all over the floor as they yelled in excitement at their new toy. Once the younger children were out, then it was Albus, James, and Victoire's turn. They opened their presents much slower and made less of a mess than their younger presents. Victoire had gotten two pairs of boots, a few sweaters, a pack of new quills, and a large pile of books on her favourite subjects from Aunt Hermione, and Uncle Ron. She couldn't help but grin when she saw the new books she had gotten. Victoire could feel the knowledge sitting in between the covers of the books, just waiting to be read by her. She of course loved her sweaters and boots as well, they were warm and fit her winter aesthetic, but the books was where it was at.  
  
She had hugged Hermione and Ron after unwrapping her books. "Thank you, I love them already!" Victoire exclaimed with her arms around the two of them.  
  
"You haven't read them yet?" Ron replied, the edges of his lips twitching upwards.  
  
"What's your point?" Victoire asked, as she sat on the ground and hugged the books to her chest. She didn't need to look at everyone else to see the amused looks on their faces, but Ron knew how Victoire felt. After all, he had almost ended his friendship with Hermione when they were in third year over a broom.  
  
Victoire couldn't wait to start reading her books as soon as she got home. And in the end it was the adults turn. Hermione, like Victoire had gotten books as presents, Ron had been given every piece of the Chudley Cannons that had come out that year. Harry had gotten everyone tickets to the next Quidditch match that was taking place between the Hollyhead Harpies and the Tornadoes.  
  
Ginny had of course gotten them the paraphernalia necessary to support her former team. Victoire was a fan of the Harpies, more out of loyalty than anything else. She didn't care about Quidditch but her Aunt Ginny had been on the Harpies team, and they were as good as any team out there, so Victoire counted herself a Harpie fan.  
  
Victoire's mum, Fleur, had received everything that she had wanted. This was mostly due to the fact that she had made a list of things she wanted and let everyone else decide who was going to buy what.  
  
Charlie had received anything and everything related to dragons, from books, to figurines, to protective gear that would keep him safe, mostly, when he was dealing with dragons. By the time Grandpa Weasley was opening his present, Victoire was half asleep where she was sitting and missed the rest of the gift unwrapping. She was jolted awake by her mum telling her that they were going home.  
  
Victoire nodded in understanding and followed her family back to the fireplace and waited for her turn to step in and go home. She barely made the climb up the stairs and to her room, she went through the actions of putting away her presents and then fell asleep as soon as her head touched her pillow.  
  
When Victoire woke up the next morning, she found an owl waiting outside of her window with a letter tied to its leg. Her vision was blurry from sleep so she stumbled out of bed and over to the window to open it and let the bird come in. It hopped onto her dresser and held out its leg. Victoire untied the note to, and with a yawn, opened it to read.  
  
Victoire,  
  
Hope your Christmas has been going well, you want to meet up with me and Poppy on the 29th in Diagon Alley to hang out, just the three of us. We've missed your sarcasm, we can't go on without hearing your monotone responses to things that we say,  
  
Love,  
Donna (but you already knew that)  
  
Victoire carried the letter with her to the bathroom  as she washed her face, and she had it tucked into the waistband of her pyjama as she fixed her bed and went down to breakfast.   
  
"Maman, is it okay if I go out to Diagon Alley with Donna and Poppy on the 29th?" Victoire asked as she got herself a bowl of cereal ready.   
  
"Is there going to be anyone else present?" Fleur asked. She was seated at the table in the kitchen with a mug of coffee in one hand and the Daily Prophet in the other.   
  
"No, just the two of them," Victoire replied. She took the seat across from her mum and began eating.  
  
"Oui, vous pouvez aller," Fleur replied and sipped her coffee.  
  
"Merci," Victoire replied through a mouthful of cereal.  
  
Victoire was a little excited to see her friends, she hadn't really missed them but it felt like there was something missing from her life without Donna and Poppy present every day.  
  
Victoire spent all the time up until the day she got to meet them reading the books that she had been given for Christmas. Victoire's parents found her reading in different rooms of the house, she was never without a book in her hands.  
  
When the day finally arrived, Victoire was ready and out of the fireplace by noon. She found Donna waiting next to the fireplace for Victoire, but Poppy was nowhere to be spotted. The Leaky Cauldron was just as dark and gloomy as always, with its usual shady guests sitting in the corners of the room, but every witch and wizard was used to the sight already.  
  
"I've missed you so much!" Donna exclaimed, throwing her arms around Victoire. Victoire stumbled back with the force of Donna's hug.  
  
"I missed you too, where's Poppy?" Victoire asked. And just as the question left Victoire's mouth, a loud meow came from a cat that shot between Donna and Victoire, something clutched in its mouth as it went.  
  
"THAT CAT HAS MY WALLET, STOP THAT CAT!" Poppy yelled, she pushed through Victoire, sending them staggering away from each other and ran after the cat.  
  
"COME BACK HERE YOU ANNOYING LITTLE—" they could hear Poppy screeching as she chased after the cat. Victoire and Donna gave each other one look before immediately setting off after Poppy.  
  
Donna was the fastest out of all of them, she came the closest to catching the cat several times but just as she was about to wrap her hands around the cat, it swerved away from her. Victoire tried to catch the cat by predicting where it would go next and beating it to the spot, but it just ended up running in between her legs or jumping through her arms.  
  
The rest of the guests of the Leaky Cauldron simply ignored them and moved out of the way of the three girls. They had cornered the cat to the wall next to the staircase leading up to the rooms. Victoire, Donna, and Poppy formed a triangle around the cat and slowly approached.   
  
"On three, we dive for the cat, but don't hurt it," Victoire said quietly.  
  
"1…" they took a step closer. The cat looked between the three of them, wallet in its mouth as if waiting for them to make a move.  
  
"2…" the cat took one step back as the girls took another step forward.  
  
"3!" and they both dove for the cat. But as they landed on the ground, the cat simply hopped over their backs and darted up the stairs.  
  
Victoire let out a loud growl in frustration, she has sacrificed her new sweater for that wallet and the cat had outsmarted all of them.  
  
"Why are you three chasing after my cat?" a familiar voice asked behind them. The three girls turned their heads to the left simultaneously and stared at Matthew, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The cat sat in his arms, wallet still in its mouth, a smug look on its face.  
  
"Your cat, has my wallet, for your information," Poppy told him. She got to her feet and marched up to the tall Quidditch player.   
  
"Hand it over," Poppy demanded of the cat. The cat looked between Poppy and its owner, unsure of what to do.  
  
"Arthur, give her the wallet," Matthew said to the cat, who looked up at him as if his owner had betrayed him and then dropped the wallet in his mouth in Poppy's hand.  
  
And for some reason, Victoire found the situation more humorous than it actually was and burst into loud laughter right where she was on the floor.  
  
"I really have missed you two," Victoire said through her laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oui, vous pouvez aller" translates to "Yes, you can go" (according to Google Translate. "Merci" is "Thank you."


	5. Five Cats and Teddy

It was one freezing Saturday in February when everything was frozen. Well, even more frozen than usual that is, the previous day had been unusually warm and whatever had been in the process of melting had frozen to ice. Victoire had watched student after student slip and fall outside from her spot by the window in the Gryffindor Common Room.  
  
Victoire had spent the day by herself, Poppy had gone off to whatever club meeting she had had that day, and Donna was, of course, talking to the Quidditch team about plays and whatever else there was to talk about for Quidditch. Victoire was out of homework, so she had taken a spot at one of the windows and was rereading the books that she had received for Christmas.  
  
The common room was quiet due to the fact that everyone was outside, slipping and sliding all over the grounds. Victoire had seen students try and start a snowball fight but the snow had been so frozen that they had eventually given up the idea. There was absolutely no one there to disturb her. It was probably the most normal day that Victoire had had in awhile.  
  
Victoire thought that she would finally get one day where something didn't explode, and a potion didn't spill all over someone's robes, but that was before Teddy Lupin's head appeared in the fireplace of Gryffindor Common Room.  
  
Victoire had been minding her own business when a, "Psst, Victoire," broke the silence in the empty common room. At first she ignored the sound, but after whatever it was kept saying her name in an attempt to catch her attention, Victoire decided that she hadn't imagined the voice.  
  
She looked up from her book and looked around the empty common room in confusion before spotting Teddy's floating head in the fireplace.  
  
"Teddy,  what are you doing?" Victoire asked him. She closed her book, set it down and hurried over to the fireplace.  
  
"I need your help with something," Teddy said, Victoire hadn't seen him look this worried in a while. He kept turning his head as if expecting someone to come and grab him.  
  
"Teddy, are you okay? Is something wrong? Did something happen during your training?" Victoire asked, alarm evident in her voice as she grew more and more concerned. He couldn't have been seriously injured otherwise he wouldn't be talking to her through a fireplace.  
  
"Um, well, you see, I did something very stupid," Teddy replied, which wasn’t saying much because Teddy was always doing something stupid. "I'm fine by the way, no need to send off any panicked owls."  
  
"What did you do?" Victoire asked narrowing her eyes. She leaned away from the fire, her legs tucked underneath her.  
  
"Well, the thing I did, was not very smart," Teddy went on, which, again wasn’t telling her much. Victoire's eyes narrowed further.  
  
"You mentioned, Teddy, what did you do?" Victoire demanded. Her normal Saturday had just flown out of the window.  
  
"I accidentally adopted five cats," Teddy blurted out, eyes wide. There was silence for a moment as Victoire took in what he said.  
  
Five cats. He accidentally adopted five cats. How does one accidentally adopt five cats? Someone would have to do some pretty fast talking to get you to adopt five cats.  
  
"Okay, and? What do you expect me to do about it?" Victoire asked, shrugging. It was just five cats, it's not like they didn't keep things bigger than cats in their home. Teddy had done much worse than this when he was younger, she would’ve thought he’d taken care of the problem already.  
  
"Andromeda is going to kill me when she sees all of these cats," Teddy whined. Victoire was sure that if the rest of his body was present he would've stomped his foot in frustration, he could be such a child sometimes.  
  
"So, they're just cats."  
  
"Five cats, Victoire. Five. Cats. Did I forget to mention that there are five cats currently in my grandmother's home?" Teddy replied waspishly. Victoire scowled at him, there wasn't any need to take that tone of voice with her, she wasn't the one that had accidentally adopted five cats.  
  
"Just get rid of them," Victoire replied. She really didn't know why Teddy was bothering her with this, there was a very easy solution to the problem, which was just get rid of the cats.  
  
"That's the problem, in case you haven't noticed!" Teddy exclaimed in irritation. "I don't know where to take them!"  
  
"I would suggest probably taking them to Uncle Harry's for the time being, if you're so worried about Andromeda skinning you over five cats. Harry and Ginny are pretty chill about things like this," Victoire said. And it wouldn't have been the first time that Harry had helped his godson out of a tough spot either. The two of them often teamed up together whenever they did something that Andromeda would have disapproved of.  
  
"Okay, okay," Teddy said nodding in understand, some of the anxiousness left his face. That was always his problem, Victoire found, he worked himself into such a panic that he couldn’t see a clear solution to even the simplest of problems. She had no idea how he was surviving Auror training.  
  
Victoire sat thinking for a moment, it wasn't easy to give away five cats, not everyone was looking to adopt an animal, so that would take a long time. And Teddy had Auror training, he couldn't cut that in order to get rid of some cats. He'd have to take them somewhere that kept pets, somewhere that wasn't where had gotten them in the first place.  
  
"I would suggest finding somewhere that can keep the cats for you, not the place you got them from," Victoire added, seeing the look on Teddy's face. Victoire could just imagine the look on the face of the person who ran the shelter when Teddy came back with five cats like, "Just kidding, I don't want them."  
  
"Okay, where do you suggest I go?" Teddy asked, looking up at her much in the same way that a child looked up to an adult for guidance. There was a sudden burst of angry meows from Teddy’s side of the fireplace, a few thumps and then some hissing. Teddy’s head disappeared for a moment, Victoire could hear him scolding the cats from the room he was in before he appeared again.  
  
"How the hell am I supposed to know, they're your cats!" Victoire replied. She really shouldn’t have been surprised by the news of Teddy accidentally adopting five cats, it just seemed like such a Teddy thing to do. Victoire would've been surprised if he hadn't landed himself in a situation like this.  
  
"Let's hope that Andromeda doesn't kill me," Teddy said.  
  
"Why would Andromeda kill you?" Victoire asked in confusion. Andromeda would be at most angry, or irritated but Victoire highly doubted she was going to commit homicide over some cats. The woman was pretty understanding and kind, Victoire couldn’t imagine her losing her temper over something as small as five cats. And it wasn't as if Teddy was going to keep them either, they'd be out of her hair in a few weeks.  
  
"Well, you know they're pretty big, and they may or may not have broken a couple of her vases, and slashed up some of the pillows on her couch," Teddy added, Victoire heard the sound of something very expensive breaking in the background and meow following it, Teddy cringed.  
  
"You're an Auror in training, I'm sure you'll be able to fix whatever they break," Victoire replied with a roll of her eyes. Her legs had gone numb from underneath her so she repositioned herself and sat cross legged instead. The longer she sat in front of the fire talking to Teddy, the sleepier she got. Her whole body was so warm it stopped short of being uncomfortable, Victoire was finding it really hard to stay awake. A nap on the common room floor sounded pretty good to her.  
  
"There's five cats Victoire, for every one thing I fix, they break three others," Teddy replied. Victoire was already forgetting about his problem, she was there in body but her mind was thinking a how nice it would be to curl up in her bed and take a nap. She was trying her best to be helpful but Teddy found a flaw with every suggestion that she said, she couldn’t help someone that didn’t really want any help.  
  
"Mhmm, well tell me how it works out will you?" Victoire replied as the portrait hole opened and Matthew stepped through it. She got up to leave, perfectly aware of the fact that Matthew was watching her when Teddy started yelling from the fire.  
  
"WAIT VICTOIRE I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH CATS! HOW DO I TAKE CARE OF THEM?! WHAT DO THEY EAT, HOW DO THEY EXERCISE?!" Teddy yelled at her, panic clear in his voice.  
  
"Buy them some cat food, and a litter box, maybe read a book on taking care of cats, I don't know," Victoire replied with a shrug, and walked away before Teddy could keep going. He couldn't talk to her if she wasn't there and Victoire highly doubted Teddy would stick around after she left. Sure enough, within a few seconds, she heard a pop and Teddy was gone. Matthew had been watching the entire thing in silence, Victoire forgot he was even in the room.  
  
"What was that about?" Matthew asked, eyebrows raised. Victoire was willing to bet that he was restraining himself from laughing, he was so predictable.  
  
"Teddy accidentally adopted five cats," Victoire replied sleepily, she put her right foot on the first step on the winding staircase when Matthew spoke.  
  
"Five cats? Why does he need five cats?" Matthew asked in confusion.  
  
"He doesn't, he adopted them by accident," Victoire replied. She really wished Matthew would just let the conversation die.  
  
"How does one accidentally adopt five cats?"  
  
"I didn't ask and I don't care," Victoire replied and then continued on up to her dorm, book tucked under her arm.  
  
Victoire had just about forgotten about Teddy's situation with the cats when his head popped up in the fireplace again a few weeks after his initial visit, startling a pair of third years in their seats. The common room was not empty that time, Teddy's floating head attracted quite a bit of attention.  
  
Victoire was in front of the fireplace before Teddy could call for her. She squatted down so she could be face to face with him. "Well, did you get rid of the cats?" she asked.  
  
"Yep, I went to the Magical Menagerie and gave it to the owner of the store," Teddy replied, nodding his head, a self-satisfied grin on his face.  
  
"Really, they took the cats?" Victoire asked in surprise. The store sold pets but she didn't realize that they also took in pets.  
  
"Yeah, they were more than happy to take the cats off of my hands," Teddy said. " However, you will be happy to hear that I wasn't talked into buying a dozen owls."  
  
"Well that's good, twelve owls would be a little hard to get rid of," Victoire replied, nodding her head. She heard someone in the background mutter, "Didn't the two of them date two years ago?" but someone always said that every time she spoke to Teddy.   
  
"I only got four owls instead," Teddy said.  
  
"Of course you did."


	6. The Controlling Potions Partner

One of Victoire's biggest pet peeves was having a Potions partner who had no idea what the were doing but acted like they did. So naturally, she got stuck with a Potions partner who had absolutely no idea what in the hell they were doing but kept insisting that they were doing everything right.

It was only ten minutes into her Potions class and she was already full of anxiety and ready to rip her hair out. Her partner wasn't chopping anything up into the right sizes, they weren’t even reading the instructions in the textbook. Some of the ingredients at their table weren't even needed. The boy next to her, Louis, simply kept chopping away, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Victoire wanted to remind him that what he was chopping would prove to be very reactive when dropped into the cauldron. The potion they were currently making didn't need the plant that he was chopping up, and Victoire knew this for a fact, she had after all memorized the theory behind the ingredients. She had tried to fix what her partner was doing and minimize the damage as much as possible, but it was proving to be difficult when Louis kept telling her to sit back and relax.  
  
Victoire was feeling many things in that moment but relaxed wasn't one of them. Homicidal, yes, but not relaxed.  
  
"No, you don't put this in the cauldron, are you trying to send us to the hospital wing?!" Victoire yelled at Louis, she slapped his hand away from the cauldron. The plant that had been in his hand landed on the floor, where Louis picked it up like it wasn't covered in dirt, blew on it, as if that was going to make it clean, and then tried to put it in the cauldron a second time.  
  
"That's even worse, what is wrong with you!" Victoire shrieked. She could see other students in her class staring at each other with worry, someone was going to have to hold her back pretty soon. Victoire was so close to lunging at Louis and strangling him. Her brother didn't deserve to share a name with someone like her partner.  
  
"Would you chill out, I got this," Louis said, he held out his right arm to keep Victoire back,  the dangerous plant still in his hand. She was going to stop him from dropping it in no matter what it took, she'd rip his black hair out if she had to.  
  
She watched in horror as the plant flew from his hand and landed in the cauldron. Victoire waited for the absolute worst to happen, she waited for things to explode and to be covered in potion, but after several tense moments, nothing happened. Victoire was in shock, everything she knew was a lie. Everything she had learned about Potions was wrong. The potion should've exploded, that was the rule, and Victoire was offended that the potion hadn't blown up.

  
"I'll be right back," Victoire said, sticking her hands in her hair in frustration. She moved to Donna's station to vent to her. Unlike Victoire, Donna hadn't gotten stuck with a partner who didn't know what they were doing. She and her partner were constantly consulting each other about the ingredients, making sure they were doing things right. Maybe this was the universe's way of telling Victoire to be kinder.  
  
The universe was going to have try harder.  
  
"Donna," Victoire said, standing to the side as Donna and her partner poured over the Potions textbook. Donna let out a hum and then turned to face Victoire a moment after.  
  
"I think today might really be the day that I actually kill someone," Victoire said, she could feel an eye twitch coming on. Donna could sense it as well and stared at her eyes with concern. Eye-twitching was not good.  
  
"What's wrong," Donna asked, crossing her arms.  
  
"My partner is a moron but he doesn't know it. Donna, I swear, if he keeps throwing in anymore ingredients at random as he is, he's going to blow up this entire room," Victoire said. Feathers were going to start popping out of her arms any moment, and everyone knew how well that went the last time.  
  
"So then go and tell him to stop," Donna replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Victoire almost clocked her friend in the face.  
  
"Really, that never occurred to me, I thought maybe if I just breathed really heavily next to him then he'd get the message," Victoire said sarcastically. Her skin was beginning to itch, the feathers were very close to popping out. She was going to turn into a goddamn bird right in the middle of class if she didn't calm down. Potions was the worst class to be throwing fireballs in.  
  
Victoire couldn't help but stare at Louis from Donna's station. She scratched her arms as she tried to burn holes through the back of his head. She was hoping if she stared hard enough then she’d burn right through to his brown eyes.  
  
"Okay, okay, I got the message, sheesh, just don't start throwing any fire and you should be fine. He hasn't destroyed anything yet so he can't be doing that bad," Donna appended in an attempt to make the situation better. Victoire's head turned so fast at Donna's words, she was surprised it hadn't snapped.  
  
"Donna."  
  
"I think I'll shut up now," Donna said hurriedly and then turned back to her partner.  
  
Donna wasn't going to be joining Victoire in conversation again out of fear of fuelling Victoire's anger even more. Victoire couldn't blame her really, she didn't even want to be around herself when she got this way.  
  
Victoire went back to her own station where Louis was still throwing ingredients at random into their cauldron. Victoire had lost track of what he had deposited in their cauldron after the twelfth  ingredient had gone in. She was surprised the entire thing hadn't blown up already, it should've by all logic.  
  
There was nothing left to do but wait and see what happened. Victoire would have to face the fact that she was going to be failing this potion. It would be her first failing mark ever, it was a truly historic day.  
  
Victoire spent the rest of class sitting back and letting Louis do all of the work. If he wasn't going to listen to her, she wasn't going to waste her breath. If she wasn't going to get to do things right, then she was going to get to say I told you so.  
  
Victoire spotted the first sign that something was very wrong when the cauldron shuddered even though neither she or Louis had touched it. It was moving for a good ten seconds, she had no idea how Louis hadn't noticed the movement. And Victoire did nothing.  
  
Louis seemed to be growing more irritated with her as well, although she couldn't imagine why. He kept throwing her dirty looks every few minutes as he threw in yet another random ingredient. In fact the whole the class had taken to staring at Victoire every few minutes. They had never seen her sitting back and doing nothing during a class her entire life. That was the most relaxed anyone had seen her in all their school years together. Ever.  
  
After a few more minutes, the cauldron began to bubble, which it definitely wasn't supposed to do, and thick black smoke began to rise. It was spreading to the front of the class, every student near the front found themselves coughing uncontrollably into the sleeves of their robes. Even old Professor Slughorn was looking over at Victoire's station with concern.  
  
"Victoire," Louis said.  
  
"Hmm," she hummed, looking up from her nails. Louis had his arms crossed, a frown on his face. He was standing far too close to her.  
  
"You've done absolutely nothing this entire class, I've been the one doing all of the work," Louis started. Victoire could feel her face settling into a neutral expression. Her mouth went straight, her eyebrows went straight, it was Victoire’s signal for “Run, and run far.” Donna could see her face going blank, everyone could see her face going blank, everyone knew what Victoire's blank face meant.  
  
"Are you serious right now?" Victoire asked incredulously in a low voice. She swung back her blonde hair and crossed her own arms. If Louis wanted to get into it, Victoire was more than ready.  
  
"Yeah, I am, all you've done is inspect your nails this entire class!" Louis exclaimed. Donna was waving frantically behind Louis's back. Victoire acted as if she hadn't seen her best friend. Donna knew better than to interrupt Victoire when she was fighting someone.  
  
"In case you weren't aware, I did try to help you, but you wouldn't listen to me, and now here we are," Victoire said, waving her hand towards their cauldron, which had begun shaking violently again. Everyone else in the class was slowly backing away from Victoire's station, alarmed looks on their faces. Donna was jumping up and down, an alarmed look on her face. Victoire continued to ignore her. No one was really sure who was going to blow up first, Victoire or the cauldron.  
  
"You were just trying to boss me around, that's not helping," Louis retorted.  
  
"You wouldn't let me near the ingredients, bossing you around was all I could do, and if you'd actually listened to anything that came out of my mouth, you wouldn't have created a bomb about to go off," Victoire snapped back. There were sparks flying out of the cauldron now. Donna's arm waving had gotten even more frantic.  
  
"I'm seventy-five percent sure this isn't going to explode—"  
  
"DOES THIS LOOK LIKE IT'S VERY STABLE TO YOU, DOES IT?" Victoire screeched. The cauldron was shaking so hard, the sparks were flying higher and higher, and the smoke had now filled the entire room. Victoire didn't wait for a response, instinct told her the cauldron was ready to blow, she pushed Louis under their table, and followed him under. Victoire's classmates got the hint and they too crawled underneath their desks.  
  
There were a few moments of tense silence and then the cauldron exploded so loudly, Victoire was fairly certain they'd heard, and felt, it on the floor above them. She had her ears plugged when it happened. Louis fell against her as their table shook violently from the explosion. She tried to wiggled out from underneath Louis’s fat head, she didn’t want his dirt covered face rubbing off on her robes and his sticky hands touching her face.

  
She stayed under the table for a few more minutes to make sure there was nothing more to follow and then crawled out. The potion had covered the entire room, from ceiling, to floor, to the teacher’s desk and blackboard, to all of the other work benches. Victoire had had to time her exit from the table so that none of the black as tar substance would land on her. Louis followed behind her a few seconds later, which was just as well because the potion had eaten away at the surface of their table and what was left of the cauldron fell through.  
  
"Nice going, dumbass," Victoire accompanied the statement with a flick to Louis's forehead.  
  
Professor Slughorn was the last one to get back on his feet, his face red, with anger or from the effort it took to get up, Victoire wasn't sure. She did know she wasn’t about to serve a detention for something she didn’t do, she’d fight her own teacher if she had to.  
  
"In all my years of teaching Potions, nothing has ever gone quite this badly before in my class," Professor Slughorn puffed.  
  
"Professor, I would just like to state that I had absolutely nothing to do in the making of this potion," Victoire said, arm in the air.


	7. Donna's Sleep Talking

Victoire wasn't prone to sleepless nights, sleeping was one of her favourite past times. But even she was victim to the occasional night where her mind just couldn't be silent enough for her to go to sleep. On nights such as those, Victoire lay in bed and listened to Donna's sleep talking.   
  
Most of the things that Victoire knew about Donna, she learned from her friend's sleeptalking. She knew how many siblings Donna had, their names, their professions, as well as the type of relationship she had with her parents and her siblings. As talkative as Donna was when she was awake, she wasn't very open about the things that mattered to her. Victoire had learned more about her friend while Donna was asleep than when she was awake.   
  
Of course, Victoire never told Donna about the kinds of things that she spouted during the night. Victoire acted like she didn't know any better to avoid her friend feeling awkward and uncomfortable. 

So when Victoire was seized with sleeplessness one week when her professors had been piling on homework after homework, Victoire prepared herself to learn more about her best friend.   
  
She knew that sleep wasn't going to come to her that night after spending three hours tossing and turning in her bed. In the end Victoire gave up and lay staring at the top of her four poster bed. Her sheets were soft and cool against her skin, her head was melting into the pillow, everything that was necessary for her to fall asleep was there and yet her brain just wouldn't stop thinking.   
  
She spent a good hour having an argument with herself that she made sure she won. Then Victoire pretended to be arguing with an imaginary person, just in case the subject ever did come up. She went to the bathroom again to make sure her bladder was empty just in case she did dose off. And then it was back to laying in bed and waiting.   
  
Finally, Donna's mumbling began to float through her curtains. Victoire had no idea that what she was tuning in for was not an update on the well-being of Donna's family, but rather something completely different.

“No . . . no . . . Victoire . . . don’t blow fire at me,” Victoire heard Donna mumble. She wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion because Victoire was quite sure that she didn’t breathe fire. She sat up and pushed back her curtains to get a good view of Donna, who never closed her own curtains.

“I didn’t mean . . . to turn you into a dragon . . . sorry,” Donna mumbled again, her right arm rising in the air half-heartedly before falling back to her side on the bed. Victoire raised an eyebrow as Donna fidgeted for a moment before turning on her side, her back facing Victoire. Victoire stayed quiet while Donna continued mumbling.

“But you look so pretty in that sparkly pink dress,” Donna suddenly yelled, making Victoire jump in her spot.

“Sparkly pink dress? That sounds atrocious,” Victoire mumbled under her breath. She was frankly insulted that Donna would dream of her wearing a sparkly pink dress. This was definitely some kind of nightmare.

“You look so good as a dragon though . . . .don’t be mad,” Donna mumbled. Victoire could very clearly picture herself as a dragon, wearing a torn up dress and breathing down on Donna, she liked to think she’d be a Hungarian Horntail. This was the weirdest dream that Victoire had ever eavesdropped on by Donna, it must’ve come from something she’d been reading.

It went on for the rest of the night, at one point Donna took to fighting with the air so aggressively she threw herself out of bed. Victoire, out of the goodness of her heart, levitated her friend back onto her bed and continued to watch in amusement. She was going to regret not getting any sleep in the morning, her body was already feeling sluggish and telling her to let them rest properly while her mind resolutely replied with,”No. Suffer.”

Donna’s adventures with dragon Victoire were quite entertaining, if Victoire could say so herself. The two of them went shopping together, cooked together, and from the screaming that went on for a good thirty seconds, Victoire was willing to bet she had set the kitchen on fire in the dream. Donna dreamt that she and Victoire had gone a cruise together at one point. Victoire felt a little irritated that her best friend seemed to prefer her in lizard shape instead of human shape when it came to cruise ships (“It’s so nice to have your stupid hair not blowing into my face.”)

Victoire had laid down at some point during the night while listening to Donna, her back had started hurting after sitting up for two hours straight. The sky outside lightened little by little as it approached dawn. When the clock struck six in the morning, Victoire decided to let Donna and the dragon version of her have one last adventure before tearing the two of them apart.

Donna’s last adventure with Victoire turned out to be setting Victoire up on a date with another dragon. It was probably the closest Victoire was ever going to get to romance.

“This blue eyeshadow really suits you,” Donna mumbled into her blanket, and this nail polish will look really good on your claws.”

There was a moment of silence as Donna threw the covers off of her complaining that it was really hot, and aggressively scratched her head.

“I don’t know what his name is . . . but he had really cool wings so he can’t be that bad,” Donna said. “You know . . . it’s funny . . . but I thought he would’ve burnt me to a crisp before I could tell him about you. You should go out on a date, take a break from being bitter once in a while.”

Victoire almost leapt out of bed and started yelling at Donna right there and then. She wasn’t wrong but there was no need to point it out, that was just rude. Victoire made the decision to wake Donna up right there and get her going for the morning.

Victoire tiptoed out of bed, grabbed her wand and stood over Donna with it ready. She pointed her wand and whispered, “ _ Aguamenti, _ ” under her breath. Victoire stepped back as the jet of water hit Donna in the face and the girl went leaping out of bed, sputtering and flinging water droplets out of her shaking head.

“Fam, what the hell?!” she exclaimed, water dripping from her shirt, her hair, her face, and her arms.

“Excuse you, but I never take a break from being bitter,” Victoire said in reply, hands planned on her hips.

“Ugh, get some sleeping potion next time and stop spying on me,” Donna said, giving Victoire a slight shove with her shoulder on her way to the loo.

“What I didn’t understand was me as a dinosaur in a sparkly pink dress.”

“Let’s not talk about this.”

“And the fact that you think you’d be able to transfigure me into a dragon by accident in the first place, you’re trash at Transfiguration.”

  
“Victoire, for your sake, I’d stop talking.”


	8. Teddy Undercover

When Victoire went on holiday, Teddy had gone undercover as an Auror. She didn't remember where or for what reason as she stopped listening after, “I'm going undercover.” As far as she could understand he was a part of some special effects team on a muggle movie set and he was supposed to be looking for someone or some clues or something, she didn't know. From the snippets that she had caught while listening in on conversations, Teddy was getting along great with everyone else on the set, he’d been invited out to many lunches and parties. He was also apparently very good at what he did, Teddy had an uncanny ability to get a lot done in a ridiculously short amount of time, and his was so good at effects that they appeared almost real (because they were probably were) being a wizard and all, but the muggles didn't need to know that.

Victoire didn't pry into his life, she didn't care all that much, but she was forced to start asking questions when she came down to the kitchen one night for a glass of water, and, upon turning on the kitchen light, found a human body laid out on the table in the middle of the room. She was ashamed to admit that she let out a high pitched scream and walked into the wall behind her face first in her panic.

Teddy popped up from under the table at the sound of Victoire’s screeching and begged her to shut up.

Victoire slapped a hand over her eyes, her other gripping the doorframe for support as she took deep breaths to calm down.

“Please explain to me why there is a dead body laid out on the table,” Victoire asked in a shaky voice.

"It's not a dead body,” Teddy said.

“Really, because it sure as hell looks like one,” Victoire replied, hand still over her eyes. When she imagined coming home for Easter, this wasn’t exactly what she had counted on seeing in her kitchen. Why was Teddy in her house in the first place?

“Well, I would hope so, it's supposed to look like a dead person,” Teddy said, amusement dripping from his voice. Victoire let out a sigh of relief, she didn't know what she would do if it had actually been a dead body, she would've needed therapy.

“You couldn't think of putting it anywhere else, it had to be laid out on the table like that, sweet Dumbledore that scared the living daylights out of me,” Victoire hissed at him. She gave the doll on the table a wide berth as she headed for her fridge to get out the pitcher of water. Just because it wasn't a real person didn't mean she wasn't freaked out by it just laying there staring at the ceiling.

Victoire grabbed herself a glass, poured water in it, and was in the middle of drinking when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned, still swallowing, to see the naked doll, or whatever the hell it was, with its hand on her shoulder, staring creepily at her. She wanted to scream in terror but instead, Victoire choked on her water, and dropped her glass.

The sound of shattering glass should've woken somebody up but nobody came downstairs to see what had happened. Teddy was on the floor choking on his laughter in his attempt to stay silent.

Victoire’s heart was pounding in her chest so hard, she thought it was going to burst. This was going to haunt her dreams for weeks. Once he had calmed down, Teddy repaired the broken glass, giggles escaping him once in awhile.

“You do that one more time and you're going to need a protection program to hide you from me,” Victoire growled, pointing menacingly at Teddy. She stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs. She had almost made it to her room when she heard Teddy call up after her, “Sweet dreams.”

Luckily for Teddy, Victoire did not dream of the doll that he had brought home, if she had, Teddy would be dead. But if Victoire thought that was the end of the situation, it was sadly not the case.

The next night, Teddy had brought along not one, but two of his projects. He had laid one out on the table, and had the other doll sitting upright, smiling at Victoire. Teddy was nowhere to be found, he had just left his dolls there.

On her way to getting a glass of water, Victoire ripped the head off of one of the dolls and set it on the table next to its hand. It was probably mean of her to do so, but she didn’t care. He was the one trying to traumatize her by just leaving them there, she had a right to defend herself.

The night after that, Teddy had set up one of his creepy little dolls at the bottom of the stairs so that when Victoire turned on the light to see, she almost fell down the stairs in fright. Teddy was nowhere to be found, again.

It wasn't bad enough that Victoire had to have a near death experience every night, Teddy had taken to leaving his dolls sitting upright in her room during the day. Victoire never saw him enter or leave her house.

One morning, she walked out of her loo to find one of Teddy’s friends sitting on her desk smiling creepily. Victoire promptly picked it up and threw it out the window. She very much hoped that not all of her Easter break was going to pass in her being followed by inanimate objects that always seemed to be staring at her.

Unfortunately for Victoire, that’s exactly what was going to happen.

Victoire would find a doll in her bathroom sometimes, or in her closet, sometimes Teddy would even put her clothes on them. That, more than anything, was the thing pushing Victoire towards the edge. It wasn't that Teddy was repeatedly breaking and entering into her house, it was the fact that he had taken her clothes and shrunken them so poorly that they were ruined forever.

But no matter what creative spot Teddy found to put his dolls, they always ended up on the kitchen table every night when Victoire came for a drink. Somehow, her parents and her siblings never ran into the dolls the same way that Victoire did, she was willing to bet money that they didn’t even know about the situation between her and Teddy. She was counting down the days until she could leave for Hogwarts.

Victoire managed to catch Teddy in her kitchen one night, looking for food.

“When is this little field trip of your going to be done, this is getting irritating. Why are you even undercover, you're training?” Victoire asked, scowling over her glass. Teddy attempted to reply several times through bulged cheeks, failing every time before he managed to swallow all of his food.

"It's to get field experience,” Teddy replied. “They didn't give me anything all that dangerous, I just have to report whatever I find back to actual Aurors and then they do the rest of it. Don't worry Victoire, I won't get hurt.”

Teddy winked at her and Victoire almost choked on her spit.

“What a shame, that means I have to put up with this nonsense some more,” she replied dryly.

“You have to admit though, it's pretty funny,” Teddy said. He moved to one of his dolls and started moving their arms, waving them as if they were saying hello, attempting to make them dance. Victoire was not amused.

“I don't call being watched by some creepy thing while I use the loo funny,” Victoire said.

It went on for so long that even if Victoire  _ had _ thought the situation to be funny originally, she most definitely did not now. If she so much as caught sight of anything that looked like Teddy left it behind, her anger levels spiked dangerously high. Not to mention it made her extremely anxious and paranoid about walking into any room.

She knew they were fake but damn it it felt like she was being watched and she didn't like it.

Victoire was ready to go down to Teddy’s film set and blow his cover on the set if he didn't stop. She didn’t care what she had to do, she would get him to stop with the creepy dolls or she didn’t know  _ what  _ she would do. Probably something violent.

Luckily, it never had to come to that because Victoire ran into Teddy again the night before she left for Hogwarts.

“You need to stop leaving your fake dead bodies everywhere, especially my kitchen table,” Victoire said in place of a greeting. Although to be fair, Victoire never greeted anyone, she always approached people as if they had done something wrong.

“Or what?” Teddy asked challengingly. He crossed his arms and smirked at her, Victoire was ready to rip out his hair.

“I'll blow your cover, I'll bribe someone to fail you at training, there's a list of things I could do to you, take your pick,” Victoire said, shrugging casually. Teddy paled at her words, and with a flick of his wrist, the dolls that he had brought disappeared with a light pop.

“All gone.”

  
“Good, you’re not as dumb as you look,” Victoire said with a sharp slap to his face before heading back to bed for some much needed beauty sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a lot of fun writing this chapter, i'm surprised i managed to write it so fast to be honest, i was expecting this to take weeks.


	9. That Time Victoire Weasley Punched Someone Out

If there was one thing that Victoire just could not tolerate, it was bullies, which was ironic since she often bordered on being a bully herself. She liked to justify it as being completely necessary considering who she was dealing with. Victoire of course said this because her only other option would be admitting that she actually had a functioning heart inside of her. And the worst kind of bully, at least in her eyes, were the older kids picking on the younger ones.

It never really occurred to Victoire that it was even possible to bully a Potter or a Weasley, she had spent her whole life surrounded by magical people trying to kiss her ass that the thought just never occurred to her. Unluckily for her younger cousin Lily, who wasn’t as good as disappearing into the background as Albus was, or as tough and loud as James, she was stuck attending muggle elementary school.

Muggle children didn’t know who Harry Potter was or what he had done, and they most definitely did not know about Victoire Weasley. If they had, then Lily would most assuredly not have been going home bruised and scratched. When the force of Harry Potter did not keep others away, the force of Victoire did.

Victoire had written her final exam when she got an owl from one of her parents explaining the entire situation to her. Victoire requested a few days away to be able to see her cousin in order to assess the situation before deciding to end someone. Naturally, it was granted, she had finished her year end exams so it wasn’t as if there was anything that was really keeping her at Hogwarts for what remained of her days there.

Victoire left a note for Donna and Poppy before leaving for the Potter household as soon as she received the okay. It became clear that she was not the only one who was going to deal with the problem at hand as only seconds after she fell out of the fireplace in the Potter kitchen, Teddy came tumbling out after her.

“What are you doing here?” Victoire asked in surprise.

“I came to see which asshole I have to beat up for harassing my cousin, why else would I be here?” Teddy asked as he slapped at his robes to get the soot off.

“Oh good, I’ll have someone for an alibi then,” Victoire said before marching off through the house in search of her aunt and uncle. After yelling, “Aunt Ginny? Uncle Harry?” for five minutes, she managed to locate them in their living room.

“What’s this I hear about someone bullying my dear cousin Lily?” VIctoire asked, claiming one of the soft cushioned chairs available to her. Teddy took a seat close by Victoire but without the anger that was radiating off of her in waves.

“It’s nothing to worry about, we’re handling it,” Harry tried to assure his niece but Victoire wasn’t fooled.

“Really, so that means the bullying has stopped then?” Victoire asked, crossing her arms in front of her and raising an eyebrow.

“Well, no, not yet,” Harry replied.

“So then you haven’t handled anything,” Victoire said, and she was mildly aware of how rude she was being but she was too angry to care. There was someone out there trying to hurt her little cousin and nobody was dealing with it in a way that she approved.

“When does Lily finish school?” Teddy asked. He had taken a position next to Victoire, his arms crossed in front of him in a similar fashion.

“Pretty soon, in about an hour I should say,” Ginny replied, checking her wristwatch.

“Great, we’ll be picking him up this afternoon,” Victoire said, and before Harry could protest Victoire’s decision, she had snatched the car keys out of Harry’s shirt pocket and tossed them to Teddy.

“Are you sure you don’t want to be an Auror, Victoire?” Harry asked. “With reflexes like that you’d probably be one of our best.”

“Of course I would be the best, I’m the best at everything, but that career is not suited for me, Teddy, let’s roll,” Victoire added with a sharp flick of her head towards the exit. Teddy followed Victoire without a word, the two of them walking side by side so seriously it looked as if they were going on their biggest crime bust of the decade instead of rushing to their cousins aid.

Unfortunately, their dramatic exit was ruined by the fact that Teddy had to go back to Harry and acquire an address as to what school Lily was attending.

Teddy was the one to drive all the way to Lily’s school as Victoire did not know how to operate a car. It had been suggested to her by her Aunt Hermione but Victoire failed to see when in her life she would ever be unable to simply Apparate out of a situation or fly a broom if both Apparition and Floo were out of the question.

Teddy parked the car on the side of the road and he and Victoire commenced spying on the school playground to see if they could spot Lily and figure out who was picking on her. Unfortunately for the two of them, the hour they spent keeping their eyes glued to the school were in vain as nothing happened. The only people that showed up at the playground was a small group of boys closer to Victoire’s age than those of the kids at school.

To Victoire, it didn’t seem strange, after all, at Hogwarts, the older kids regularly mingled with the younger ones, it was hard not to considering everybody had to live with each other for ten months out of the entire year. Victoire decided to wait around for a few minutes to give Lily enough time to say goodbye to her friends before going to pick her up, she didn’t want to embarrass her, not that Victoire thought she could embarrass anyone by just being present. On the contrary, she considered people quite blessed if they were in her presence, she was great.

After five minutes of waiting, Victoire decided that she had had enough. “Stay here, I’ll deal with this,” Victoire said to Teddy and got out of the car before he could protest.

“Remember, murder is a crime Victoire!” Teddy yelled after her, very unsubtly. His statement attracted quite a few looks from the parents on the way to pick up their kids.

Victoire passed by the group of older boys that she had seen earlier, completely ignoring the looks that they gave her as she passed by. She reached the school the same time that Lily left with her head hanging down, and her shoulders hunched, as if she was trying very hard to disappear and go unnoticed.

The last time Victoire had seen Lily, she had been bouncing all over the place, always excited to be trying new things and to hear about what Victoire had been up to. The anxious looking girl in front of her didn’t look like her cousin at all, Victoire almost thought it was a Lily look alike.

“Lily?” she asked, unsurely. Lily looked up with a start and looked around to see who was calling her, and when her gaze landed on Victoire’s, she paled considerably. Victoire frowned down at her now pale-as-a-sheet cousin, she should’ve been glad to see her, she was there to save the day, maybe set someone on fire.

“Victoire, no,” Lily said before she could continue.

“You don’t even know why I’m here?! You’re not even wondering why I’m not at Hogwarts right now?!” Victoire exclaimed as Lily walked past her.

“It’s exam time and I’m guessing you’re all done yours, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, and second of all, who snitched?” Lily demanded, glaring up at Victoire. Now she was beginning to act a lot more like she used to.

“I’m not telling you who snitched, I’m just here to fix the problem, who is it?” Victoire demanded.

“I’m not telling you, I can handle myself Victoire,” Lily replied. Victoire rolled her eyes at Lily’s turned back.

“Yeah, that’s why you were walking like you’d just gotten your ass beat, because you can handle yourself, okay,” Victoire said and watched as Lily reddened in the face.

“Alright Lily, whose ass are we kicking?” Teddy asked grinning, he held up his hand for a high five but Lily simply ignored him and crossed her arms instead. Teddy looked to Victoire, the grin sliding off his face, but she simply shook her head. They were just going to have to spy on Lily and watch out for who picked on her. The car back home was silent and the only thing Victoire said before Lily escaped from the car was,

“Hey Lily, you don’t have to solve all of your problems on your own, I mean, look at your dad, he didn’t defeat Voldemort all on his own, he had Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron there to help him,” but the only response she got from Lily to that was a slam of the door.

The next day, Victoire was back at it, except instead of leaving after she dropped off Lily at school in the morning, she and Teddy sat in the car all day, a Magnifying Charm cast on their eyes to keep a close eye on Lily whenever she was within viewing range. Victoire expected to see someone around Lily’s range maybe teasing her about her hair or for causing weird stuff to happen around her, but as far as Victoire could tell, everyone liked Lily and liked being around her.

What Victoire did see, however, was the teenagers that she had seen yesterday when she had picked up Lily from school, sneak up on her until they had isolated her from her friends, and push Lily to the ground. Victoire looked around for a teacher but found no adult in sight to put an end to what she was seeing.

Lily wasn’t going down without a fight, that much was obvious, she tried to get up and but she was simply pushed back down, and although Victoire couldn’t hear what the teenagers were saying, she was fairly certain it wasn’t anything pleasant judging from the jeering looks on their faces and how red Lily was turning. Her friends couldn’t do anything although they sure looked like they wanted to, and judging by the terrified looks in their eyes, VIctoire had a feeling they’d been dissuaded from telling any teachers about what was going on.

Victoire was ready to jump out of the car and go kick ass right there and then but Teddy stopped her before she could get herself arrested for assault and her wand snapped for breaking the Statute.

“Teddy look at what they’re doing to her, I can’t just sit back and watch!” Victoire yelled as she angrily pushed at the car door in an attempt to open it which had had the foresight to lock knowing how Victoire could get. “Unlock the car!”

“Victoire I’m not letting you exit this car until you’ve calmed down and those feathers stop sprouting from your skin,” Teddy said looking down at her arms. Victoire stopped aggressively rocking the car trying to get out and began taking in deep breaths. She couldn’t go out punching people if she looked like some lab experiment.

After a few minutes of silence, Victoire managed to go back to looking normal, the car covered in her feathers. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m calm,” Victoire said, her hands clenched in her lap and her shoulders sitting near her ears.

“Victoire you’re shaking,” Teddy pointed out, staring at her balled up hands which were indeed shaking with anger.

“Please, for the love of any deity you wish to believe in, shut the up,” Victoire growled and Teddy held up his hands in the universal sign for surrender.

The two of them sat and waited for the rest of the day, Victoire refused to be removed from their position in case Lily’s situation got worse. Once the time came for Lily to be dismissed for the day, Victoire was out of the car before Teddy could blink and striding towards the school.

Victoire was just going to threaten Lily’s bullies into fearing her family before Lily came out of the school and caught her at it. She waited, and sure enough, the group showed up again, probably hoping to get in another shot at Lily. Victoire scowled at them when they stared at her as they walked by. Her arms crossed in front of her chest, Victoire strode towards them. They stopped and looked her over, as people often did whenever she gave them all of their attention.

She stopped in front who she assumed was the leader of the gang and glared at him.

“Can I help you?” he asked her, going for what she assumed was supposed to be a charming grin.

“Yeah, actually, you can, I want you to stop harassing my little cousin,” Victoire said sternly.

“I don’t know who your cousin is.”

“Yeah, you do, she was the one you were pushing around today,” Victoire snapped at them, her temper spiking again. She wanted to Veela out and kick the dude in the face or maybe transfigure him into an ant and step on him, but she couldn’t do that if she didn’t want to be banned from the wizarding world.

“Oh, you mean the little Potter twerp,” the boy said, smirking at Victoire. She slapped him across the face hard enough that it attracted the attention of some of the parents waiting for their children.

“Her name is Lily, thank you very much, and you’re going to leave her alone, starting today,” Victoire said. She hoped that she was provoked, she very much hoped that this boy would foolishly push her so that she could have a reason to punch him in the face.

He did not fail to deliver.

“Right, and what are you going to do if I don’t?” he asked, literally speaking down at her as if she were a child.

Victoire moved so fast, the boy didn’t even have time to move away from her. She gripped his face with one hand, her nails digging into both of his cheeks as she kept his face in place for a moment, and then pulled him closer. “You don’t want to see what I’ll do if you don’t stop bullying my little cousin, and I can assure you it will be very painful for you, and do you know what the best part is?” Victoire asked, tilting her head and smiling icily. The boy in her grip shook his head.

“I’m going to be able to get away with it, stay away from my family” and Victoire let go. She turned around and was prepared to make a dramatic exit with a swing of her hair when she heard a burst of laughter behind her.

“Man, that was really good, you had me going there for a second,” the boy said, pretending to wipe away tears from his eyes. Victoire was in front of the boy again before he could so much as blink and her fist was swinging, making contact with the boy’s face, and then he was dropping to the ground unconscious. She turned to address the rest of his entourage, all of whom had taken several steps away from the girl practically spitting fire.

“You want to test me?” Victoire practically growled at them. And now they were taking her seriously, now they weren’t laughing at her and treating her like a child. Lily’s bully might have been unconscious but whoever was left could deliver the message to him just as well as she could. Every boy left standing around her shook their heads.

“The only thing worse than bullies, are bullies that pick on people smaller than them, weaker than them. Do you get some satisfaction out of it? ‘Look at me beat up a defenseless ten-year-old for being different,’ do you think that’s cool? You think that makes you look cool? It doesn’t, it makes you look pathetic. If I hear one more word about Lily getting picked on, you and I are going to have a problem, and you don’t want to have a problem with me, do you understand me?” Victoire asked.

“Crystal clear,” everyone muttered, avoiding eye contact with her.

“Good, then you’re going to apologize to Lily, and I never want to see you around here ever again, okay?” Victoire replied, her smile sweet as syrup. The unconscious boy was escorted away by his friends while the rest stayed behind to apologize to Lily once she came out, and come out she did a few minutes after everyone had calmed down.

She first spotted Victoire and then the group of boys standing behind her. Lily’s pace slowed down considerably as she approached VIctoire, who smiled down at her as if there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world.

“Uh, Victoire, what are you doing here?” Lily asked, eying her bullies warily.

“Well, I’ll be going back to Hogwarts for the last few days left and I thought I’d come and see you one more time before I left again,” Victoire said, throwing an arm around her and ruffling her hair.

“I think there are some people that have something to say to you,” VIctoire added quietly to Lily. When the group of boys stepped forward, Lily instinctively moved closer to Victoire and took a small step behind her.

“Potter, we just wanted to say that we’re sorry . . . about picking on you,” the boys said quietly, glancing at Victoire as they did so. There was a moment of silence and then Victoire cleared her throat, staring at the boys intently.

“Oh, and uh, we won’t be bothering you or coming around here any time soon,” they added, looking down at the ground.

“Thanks,” Lily said, and she grabbed Victoire’s hand and led her away from the group of boys without looking back.

“Victoire I know this is all because of you,” Lily said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Victoire insisted, raising her eyebrows innocently.

“Victoire, I’ve seen the looks on their faces before, that’s usually how people look after you’ve had words with them,” Lily said, looking up at her cousin with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, okay, I did something, so sue me,” Victoire said, dropping the innocent act and shrugging.

“Thanks, Victoire,” Lily said, squeezing her hand. 

“No problem,” Victoire replied, smiling down affectionately at her cousin.

“But you should really see a therapist about your aggression and anger problems, you don’t handle things very peacefully.”

  
“Let’s not ruin the moment.”


	10. One Last Escapade

Victoire’s least favourite part about Hogwarts was the end of the year, not because she was sad to be going home, but because her fellow classmates had developed this irritating tradition that involved dumping her in the Black Lake at the end of each year.

It started in her first year when Victoire was walking along the lake enjoying the nice weather when she tripped and fell into the lake. And then in second year, somebody “accidentally” ran into her and she went diving into the lake. Victoire was forever convinced that somebody had it out for her but everyone scoffed every time she brought it up so she learned to stop bringing it up.

During her third year, Donna had come charging out of nowhere and body slammed her into the lake. Victoire had only managed to get out a “What are you-” before Donna had come barrelling into her, arms wrapped around her waist and knocked the air out of her.

Victoire had almost killed Donna right there and then but managed to restrain for several reasons. First and foremost, murder didn’t look good to . . . well, anyone really, and second, Donna was one of her only friends.

In Victoire’s fourth year, Donna had managed to convince the rest of their dorm mates, which included Poppy at the time, to grab one of Victoire’s limbs and carry her down to the lake, where a large audience had assembled, and on the count of three, swung her into the lake.

By fifth year, it had turned into a game of Capture Victoire, the teams being Victoire and everyone else. Victoire was very good at hiding, but as it turned out, everyone else was even better at finding her. When she asked Donna how they managed to find her, Donna had just rolled her eyes and said that Victoire’s magic was very obvious.

“What do you mean it’s obvious?” Victoire asked indignantly.

“You overdo it because you assume the rest of us are too stupid to notice so your work always ends up looking just a little bit out of place, it’s like even your magic is looking down on us,” Donna had replied.

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Victoire huffed.

“You just need to see it to get it,” was all Donna said shrugging.

Sixth year meant it had turned into an event, the merpeople had been given notice so as not to attack when a giant human being suddenly splashed down into their waters, a boat was made ready and even the teachers were watching from the castle. Victoire had hidden herself on the Whomping Willow, how she managed to get up there without getting her head taken off no one knew and Victoire didn’t spill any beans.

It took all morning but by the time lunch rolled around a group of students managed to get her down. They got on the same boat as the previous year with Donna and rowed far enough away from the shore that Victoire wouldn’t bang her head when they threw her in.

“I’ll see you all in hell for this,” Victoire snapped at everyone on board.

“Victoire, we all know that you don’t hate this nearly as much as you act like you do,” Donna said, rolling her eyes at Victoire’s childish pout.

“Victoire, we know you don’t hate it as much, otherwise you would’ve sued everyone for all that they had by now,” Donna pointed out which got her a glare from Victoire. “By the way, the water’s particularly cold today, enjoy.”

And before Victoire could say anything more, she went flying through the air and landed with a loud splash in the freezing lake.

But in her last year, Victoire was determined to evade the situation, she would hide where nobody would think to look, she’d stick herself to the ceiling of the Great Hall and cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself.

They always threw her in on the second last day before they had to leave, that way she had enough time to dry off and change her clothes, so in the middle of the night, Victoire snuck out of her dorm and made her way down to the Great Hall as quickly as possible. She’d had to change her course several times on the way down as she heard Prefects coming down the hall or, worst of all, Peeves went zooming by.

Eventually, she made it down to the Great Hall without getting caught, and after making sure that it was empty, quietly made her way to the center of the room. Victoire took out her wand, pointed it at herself and whispered, “Wingardium Leviosa.”

She slowly lifted herself towards the ceiling, making sure not to lose focus as that would end painfully, not to mention loudly. After five minutes of slow work, she landed herself on one of the curved beams of wood holding the ceiling in place and let out a deep breath in relief.

With one hand resting against the ceiling to make sure that she didn’t fall, Victoire twirled her wand around herself, muttered, “Calamitatis,” and watched as the Disillusionment Charm took effect and she blended in with her background. She carefully slid her legs down on either side of the beam so that she was straddling it and slowly slid her way as close to the ceiling as she possibly could without falling off.

Once she had moved as far as the beam of wood would allow her, Victoire took her wand, pointed it at herself and said, “Exposimise,” and leaned back into the wood now having stuck herself securely. She repeated the spell on her legs and butt, and once confident that her Sticking Charm was going to keep her from falling to her death, she placed her wand in between her legs to make sure it didn't fall, and fell asleep.

Several hours later, Victoire woke up as the volume in the Great Hall had increased from dead silent to achingly loud. It took her moment to adjust to the amount of sunlight streaming in and shrug off enough of the sleep to focus on everyone in the Great Hall.

After carefully looking up and down the Gryffindor table, Victoire finally spotted Donna, who was looking around the Great Hall, no doubt searching for Victoire. She watched as her friend turned to those around her to ask if they had seen Victoire and watched as everyone shook their head no. Poppy didn’t seem nearly as interested in finding Victoire as Donna was, she was more concerned with shoving as much food into her mouth as possible.

Obvious magic my foot, Victoire thought smugly, Donna would never think to find her stuck to the Great Hall.

Eventually Donna stood on the Gryffindor table and called everyone’s attention to her, Poppy continued to eat undisturbed.

“Everyone, I would like to inform you that Victoire has gone missing, so to start off today’s event, we’re going to split up and search this castle from top to bottom to find her. And Victoire, in case you're listening, which you probably are because you somehow have eyes and ears everywhere, we’ll find you, don't worry,” Donna yelled. As soon as she stepped off of the table, the entire hall erupted in noise as everyone got up and hurried out of the hall to search for Victoire.

Victoire was tempted to yell out, “Good luck!” but even she knew that would be a very bad idea.

The Great Hall emptied within minutes -Poppy abandoned her plate of food with a sigh loud enough that Victoire heard it before following the rest of the student body out of the room- until it was only Victoire and the professors still left in the room.

“Minerva, shouldn't we have put a stop to this yearly event, I'm pretty sure this qualifies as harassment,” Neville said to McGonagall as the two of them prepared to leave.

“Ms Weasley is more than capable of handling herself, if she were against this little game of theirs, I believe she would've put a stop to it all on her own quite a few years ago,” McGonagall replied, looking up at Victoire before following Neville out of the Hall.

Victoire spent all of her morning in her spot, she watched as the house-elves stopped by to clean up whatever mess was left from breakfast. She watched first years come in to look under the tables and then the sixth years that came after them to check again. She could see students running back and forth through the doors and hear them yelling to each other outside and still nobody found her.

Eventually everyone came back for lunch before splitting up again to go searching. Victoire was watching the fifth group of students to come around checking in there for her when a girl came running into the Great Hall to pass on a message.

“We have to get down to the Lake apparently they're going to come up with a different plan of finding her or something,” and out ran the girl who gave the message with the group right behind her.

Victoire considered now a good time as any to get down. She picked up her wand, undid the Sticking Charm and levitated herself back down to the ground with the Disillusionment Charm still in place.

She quietly and quickly made her way down to the Black Lake where most of the student body had gathered. Victoire avoided touching anyone around her by moving through any empty spaces that she found available whenever someone moved until she eventually found herself right behind Donna.

Donna was standing at the edge of the Black Lake, her back to the water as she spoke out to everyone.

“Instead of looking for Victoire, let's try luring her out. She’ll probably want to know what our next plan of attack is and Victoire loves to brag. Chances are she’ll probably come out of wherever she's hiding to prove that she can keep from getting caught no matter what and that's when she’ll slip up, hopefully,” Donna added. It was then that an idea hit Victoire, since it was their last year and all, now might be a good time to change tradition. Someone was going into the Lake alright, but Victoire was going to make sure that it wasn't her.

“Hey, Donna!” Victoire yelled loud enough to be heard over the crowd.

Donna frowned and turned to look around her trying to find Victoire just like everyone else was. Once Donna had completely turned her back on everyone and faced the Lake, Victoire used her wand to lift Donna off her feet and drop her into the Lake.

It was a few seconds before Donna came sputtering to the surface, her hair stuck to her forehead and her robes floating around her. She looked around wildly trying to find whoever had thrown her in. Victoire took her wand and with an elaborate flourish, undid her Disillusionment Charm. She shook her hands on either side of her face while grinning smugly.

“Surprise!” Victoire said as she continued to do jazz hands. “How's that for subtle magic.”

Donna went on and on about Victoire pulling the wool over her eyes well into dinner time and all the way up into their dormitory, although Victoire had no idea why she was so surprised. Victoire thought that maybe by the time they had all gotten ready for bed, Donna would’ve let it go, but when she walked out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel, the first thing out of her mouth was, “I cannot believe that you actually escaped from us this year, I just cannot.”

Poppy groaned and buried her face in her mattress. Victoire, kneeling by the side of her trunk, stared up at the ceiling as she let out a sigh.

“She was bound to win one of these years,” Poppy replied, as she braided her hair.

“Speaking of today, I didn’t see you,” Victoire said. She was folding up and putting away the last few items of clothing that she had left into her trunk. Victoire noted with disapproval that Donna’s things were still hanging out of her trunk and around her bed.

“I had a feeling you’d be trying your best to stay out of the water and I didn’t want to make myself a target in case you decided to throw someone in, but I was there, don’t worry,” Poppy said, staring intently at her hands as they worked.

“But still, how? I thought I’d be able to spot your work from a mile away,” Donna said as she kicked a stray shoe out of her way.

“You can’t win them all,” Victoire said with a shrug. “Besides, I’m sure you’ll have plenty more opportunities to push me into bodies of water in the future.”

 

“We’re all going to stay friends after Hogwarts, right, all three of us?” Donna asked.

“Of course we are,” Victoire replied with a raise of her eyebrows, why wouldn’t the three of them remain friends after Hogwarts? “You didn’t think you could get away from me that easily, did you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story has been sticking around for a long time (it's been on a couple of other sites a lot longer than it has been here,) mostly due to the fact that i was too lazy to write anything for it but i finally decided that it was time i get to work with all of my works in progress, and here we are, at the end of one. i enjoyed writing victoire a lot and i hope you enjoyed reading about her. i don't know if i'll write anything else on this version of victoire but you never know, inspiration might strike.

**Author's Note:**

> chapter 1 was written a few years ago so i promise you that the writing gets better as you read on because the other chapters are more recently written.


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